


Not Always the Same Joke

by Vulgarweed



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 80s Teenagers, Multi, Punk Rock Angels, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-15
Updated: 2012-12-15
Packaged: 2017-11-26 00:46:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/644697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vulgarweed/pseuds/Vulgarweed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two teen angels who met their Maker in the '80s are sent back to Earth to re-establish contact with one of Heaven's agents and to keep an eye on kids. Inspired by the song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZQeW6XPAE0">Alleluia</a>, by Dar Williams. Written for Cinaed in the 2012 <a href="http://go-exchange.livejournal.com/">Good Omens Holiday Exchange</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Always the Same Joke

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cinaed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cinaed/gifts).



Little Lori Crupps – now calling herself Biafriel, California surf punk who flew so gracefully over the pastel pink and green and pulsing red neon waves in the strange bubblegum-colored seas of Heaven, was a little nervous now. At the sight of her love on the shore, she reluctantly steered her surfboard towards the dunes.

“They're sending us back to Earth?” she asked, turning down the volume as much as she could bear to on the Circle Jerks on her waterproof Walkman. “Have we done something wrong?”

Pale, magena-haired Helena – Siouxsiel, that is—stood there as she always did when she visited Biafriel on the beach, holding her black parasol to preserve her goth-perfect complexion, even though Heaven's sun was completely subjective. “Doesn't sound like it. And not for lack of trying either.”

“I don't quite get what we're supposed to do, though.”

“They told me a little more, finally,” said Siouxsiel. “We're supposed to go to London.”

“Wow, really?” said Biafriel, excited. She was thinking of the Clash and the Sex Pistols and the Damned and of course her girlfriend's namesake and....

“Not for good. It's just an assignment. I think they want us to watch over people for a while. And there's someone we gotta check in with when we get there.”

Biafriel smiled. “My specialty. Is it a boy or a girl? What is it? Is it drugs or cutting or binging and purging or...”

“See, the one we check in, I don't _think_ he's the one we're supposed to be watching,” Siouxsiel said. “I dunno, I could be wrong about this. But I don't think he's a kid, or even a human. I think it's an _angel._ And not the same kind as us, the kind who were people who died...

“People who died! Died!” Biafriel sang. Siouxsiel rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I know. Listen to me! This is _weird!_ I can't deal with this kind of responsibility! We're supposed to meet up with one of the _Original Choir._ The first ones! The _real_ ones, the ones who all the other angels are trying to be!”

“The ones who influenced all the other angel bands?”

“Yes! That's what I'm saying! One who was never a person and got themselves killed some stupid way!”

“One who... _always_ had wings?”

“Yes!” Siouxsiel shouted, both excited and terrified.

“Bloody hell.”

“That sounds fucking weird coming out of your mouth, Miss 'California Uber Alles.'”

“But Heaven's so cool you can watch _The Young Ones_ for a whole year if you want to. I did. I guess it rubbed off. Blimey, we're goin' to London!”

Siouxsiel sighed. “Sweetie, remember, we died in 1983. Things don't change much up here, but they do down there, and they change really fast. Remember that.”

“Of course I remember! We peeked in when Joe Strummer got his wings, remember? Oh, he looked so surprised. And he played 'Janie Jones' for us!”

“Just don't expect it to be like....”

“Remember when I wanted to see New York? And you said, 'Why bother, almost all the Ramones are here?' I _know._ I'm just excited to go back for a little while, that's all. Maybe I'll catch a cold. Maybe I'll stub my toe. You never think you'll miss that, but I kinda do.”

Siouxsiel still looked a little uneasy. “I just can't figure out why they're sending _us._ I mean, we haven't been angels that long when you really think about it. We're just kids, really. Still. I bet we will be for another thousand years.”

“Maybe that's it. Because we're young and we're brave and we're the new generation, right?”

“I think there's been another one to come along since then. You know we're over 40 now, right?”

“NEVER! FOREVER YOUNG!”

That might have been precisely the problem.

In the Father's house, there are many mansions. Lori and Helena—car wreck and alcohol poisoning, respectively; ages 16 and 17, respectively – lived in a Heaven that conformed to their gleeful noncomformity; a benign place where the waves were good for surfers and the weather was cool and gloomy for goths (even when they were together, which was always). Lori still had her tan and her white-blonde Mohawk; Helena her pointy witch boots that never needed polishing and her jewel-toned hair that never needed touchups.

This is an odd corner of Heaven that the traditionalists would never recognize; and even certain natives would be shocked to see how often the cafeteria offered sushi. 

This is a Heaven that was created for a contingency. Oh, sure, an Apocalypse had always been built into the Plan, or at least some versions of the Plan—but it was meant to be a supernatural Apocalypse, with Thrones and Dominions, Christ and AntiChrist, horsemen and avenging angels, a Beast and a Whore. But as Lori and Helena (“Handbasket,” as she'd called herself) and all the rest of their generation knew at the time, the end of the world really was very near—and it was going to come down to two superpower nations, countless bases of nuclear missiles, and very possibly a single computer malfunction or trigger-happy button-pusher, or ill-considered words; gunpoint diplomacy gone wrong. It would be rather mundane and not magical at all: it would be human error and human ego and human machinery and human hate that would destroy the world. No angels or demons required, wanted, or looked for. Imagine there's no Heaven, it's easy if you try. In fact, it's easier. And Heaven built a special habitat, just in case, to fend off a potential onslaught of stunned unbelievers all arriving at once.

Neither one of the girls minded all that much, dying so young. They were pretty sure the whole rest of the world would come along to join them very soon. And when they had first laid eyes on each other, well, they realized they hadn't been cheated out of anything important after all.

***

So down out of the celestial gateways flew Biafriel and Siouxsiel, riding the astral jetstreams that guided them safely through Earth's dangerous atmosphere. They rose and fell dizzyingly on the shimmering singing lights of the Aurora Borealis, and kissed in the whirl of a tropical storm passing harmlessly over the churning sea. _Oh, such waves!_

They squeezed each others' hands and squealed as landmasses took on familiar shapes and they descended gracefully, in broad circles like eagles, closer and closer into the sea-carved outline of Great Britain.

Down and down into the heart of London. Siouxsiel had wanted to land in Highgate Cemetery, but the huge trees made that impractical. It was a scenic landing on the Tower Bridge instead, by night, all the lights of the city shining around them and guiding them down.

It had been so long since they'd walked on earth among people – living people, not winged spirits. People who spit and fart and jostle each other. People who cough, people who shove, people who shout and curse and yell nasty things at young girls.

“They should be afraid of _us,_ remember,” said Biafriel.

“No, they shouldn't. We're angels now.”

“They always say that in the Bible. I say, 'you SHOULD be afraid.”

Just the thought of God's disapproving therapist face was enough to make them giggle. With delight they looked at nightclubs, tattoo and piercing parlors, sex toy shops; with angel eyes they watched the drug trade and the skin trade, all laid open to their eyes in the streets of Soho.

And what they were looking for was one little bookshop, incongruous in its lack of glitz.

Biafriel cooed at the vintage Bentley parked outside; Siouxsiel sighed at the sight of the wine the two deceptively-human-looking creatures were drinking. The temptation was there to recreate their deaths in /style.//

“Guess we better knock.”

“Why? We can go right through.”

“But they can kick our asses.”

“Oh.”

Siouxsiel rapped on the door sharply, and an annoyed voice called back, “Closed! There's a sign!”

“I didn't read it!”

“Well, if you don't read, you've no business here!”

“Oh, but we do!”

There was an irritated sigh, and a slow shuffle of footsteps. The door was opened by a slightly rumpled-looking middle-aged-man-shaped creature in a dull green cardigan and muted tartan trousers. “Oh dear. Teenagers.”

“Teenagers _forever.”_ said Biafriel, fanning open her tiger-butterfly-striped wings.

“My goodness,” said the shopkeeper, who had to be the angel Aziraphale, despite his appearance. “How dreadful.”

Another being approached from within the shop – this one lean and dark and handsome, and wearing dark sunglasses. He had to belong to the _totally rad_ car outside, he just _had_ to.

“Hi there,” he said, with a snakey smile. His incisors were very sharp. He seemed to appraise the situation. Siouxsiel flashed her wings too – black and red velvet-textured. The snakey man presented a hand to shake. “I'm Crowley. Nice to meet you. You must be...you're not fairies, are you?”

“No. We're _angels.”_

“Really?” Crowley looked surprised, and turned to Aziraphale, and then to the girls. “You're different from....”

Aziraphale sighed and pinched his nose. “They're...yes, they are. In a sense. Guardians. Not like—well, they were human once.”

“Wow,” Crowley said. “That is fascinating. Because, you know, downstairs, there are some demons who...”

Aziraphale elbowed him sharply, but there was no point in even attempting discretion when Crowley got so bloody curious.

“Come in, come in,” Crowley said warmly, stretching out his arm, apparently forgetting that this was not _his_ place. 

With smiles and a little bit of awe, the two girl angels walked in, hand in hand. Biafriel hadn't been much of a reader, but Siouxsiel had, and she had forgotten how much she missed the smell of book dust.

“Would you like some wine?”

“Yes!” they said in unison. 

Aziraphale gave a disapproving look, and Crowley sighed. “They can't be underage for all eternity, angel, that's just not fair.”

“But that's how one of them died!” Aziraphale blurted, and three faces turned to look at him with a little bit of smug validation.

“Oh, you _do_ know who we are!” Biafriel blurted. “Anyway that's sort of how both of us died, 'cause I wasn't exactly sober when I crashed that bitchin' Camero.”

“Well, they won't die of it again, so I don't see what you're being so prissy about,” Crowley said.

“It's just...it's just...oh, fine,” Aziraphale said. “I'm sorry I've been inhospitable. I'm just...I don't understand why you're here. I don't understand what you want from us.”

Siouxsiel took a glass of wine and stared at it philosophically. “We were sent down here to visit. I was told Heaven feels that...there's been a bit of neglect, you know, the guardian detail has been allowed to...well, it's not up to what it needs to be.”

“They sent us down here after I taught the choir some Black Flag songs,” Biafriel said helpfully. “And I was desperate for some new jokes. Maybe even some dirty ones.”

“Yes, I can see how they might have wanted to give you a mission,” Crowley said.

“It wasn't all my fault! Siouxsiel started the food fight!”

“It's really hard to get Jello out of feathers,” Siouxsiel sighed. “I won't do that again.”

Crowley grinned. “We've had that experience with chocolate syrup.” Aziraphale looked scandalised, and Biafriel's eyes brightened as something clicked into place and she looked wildly back and forth between them.

“Oh!” she cried happily. “Are you gay too? So are we! PRIDE!” she yelled, with her fist in the air.

Aziraphale's color was as deep as the wine. “Not _exactly...._ not unless...I...er...make an effort...'cause of gender, you see, it isn't really...”

“But he's your boyfriend?”

Crowley laughed, rich and mischievous and joyous, and slithered his arm around Aziraphale's waist. “Yes, I am.”

Siouxsiel, always a little more cautious, read Aziraphale's look. “You're scared of them finding out.”

Aziraphale finally just gave in, and nodded, looking at the ground. “You know it's not just...I mean, Crowley is...he's....”

Crowley took off his sunglasses.

“WOW. COOOL!” Siouxsiel said and stared close at his eyes, forgetting herself for a moment. “Those aren't contacts, are they, they're...OH MY GOD HOW DID YOU GET THOSE?”

Crowley gave a wry little smile. “I Fell.”

“And then...didn't you kind of climb back up?” asked Biafriel, because of all the things she'd heard about demons, this cute and slightly sweet guy just did not match up.

“Back up far enough to meet me halfway, I'm afraid,” Aziraphale said. “Now do you understand? And if you're here to spy on us and rat us out, then please do get it over with.”

But Biafriel and Siouxsiel were looking at each other, and back at Aziraphale and Crowley with something like religious awe, something they had never quite felt in all their years in Heaven.

“I thought angels didn't change.”

“I thought demons were always horrible.”

“I thought that kind of angel wasn't like a human at all.”

“I didn't think they could fall in love.”

“I didn't think...”

“I never thought...”

Aziraphale and Crowley found themselves wildly hugged, one punk-rock-loving winged girl each.

“It's _not_ like that!” Biafriel blurted. “Not at all! We didn't come to hurt you or spy on you! We're here to learn from you, and then look out for people!”

Siouxsiel took Aziraphale's hand. “We're together, she and I. Everybody knows it up there.”

“They sent us down here right after you French-kissed me in the entrance hall.”

“Well, remember that whole all-lesbian softball team was coming in after that bus accident, we wanted to make them feel welcome!”

“Maybe a nice bouquet would have gotten us in less trouble.”

“They weren't really that mad. They just wanted to find us something to do.”

“So they sent you to pester, I mean, help us,” said Aziraphale, but a tightness in his face had eased and his small smile had taken on some warmth. “And earth in general.”

“Yeah,” Biafriel said. “And help kids not make the same mistakes we did.”

“Ohhh,” Crowley said. “Well, there's a lot of work for you to do in London. But not right here, see, we're not kids. We never were, you know. And we don't make a lot of mistakes.”

Aziraphale laughed.

“Well, not that kind.”

“As far as I'm concerned, my dears, you can come back and visit any time you like, as long as you leave my books alone.”

Hand in hand, Siouxsiel and Biafriel left the shop with well-wishes and a sense of home as they went out, back again, into the human world. They'd never fully be part of it again, and as time went on, they'd become more and more angelic and less humanlike – and from time to time, they would think fondly of an angel and a demon who were changing ever so gradually in the other direction.


End file.
